using old laptop and jornada for puter, newbie idiot needs comments

n xntrx car · 04-07-2004, 12:54 AM

just looking to replace radio in car, perhaps later vid
-parts i have
p1 notebook w/ fried hd
jornada 680 bad batt
160 gb hd
-plan
jornada touch sceen, is single din, use screen
laptop, get dodking station use as carputer
hd get adapter remove cd rom for space
amp wire up
eq 1/2 din w/ gain controls
switch wired into keyless entry via the relay for boot time
wifi to home
fm tuner
-problems
how to get drivers of jornada & conv to op sys?
how to adapt connecters of jornada?
have an adapter to go the other way on drives (lap hd to desk comp), will it work in reverse?
laptop wont boot cuz hd fried, what os to run? its a 133/ 32ram. is it pos to get another copy of 95 from microsoft since thats what it had?
how to get fm tuner in laptop?
is it possible to do w/o laptop? (yes i've searched)
there's more...

trying to keep this as inexpensive as possible. i know its going to be 3 times more than any estimate, just want to keep the muiltipler down
my experience is no programing or building experience, i do have ample electronics skills though.

CdRsKuLL · 04-07-2004, 01:23 AM

ok, I really dont think the laptop has enough power to decode mp3's and cert wont be able to do divx. As for converting the pda screen to your laptop, this I think would be very complexed. As for wiring up a big harddrive to a laptop, yeah this can be done, there are loads of caddys out there, the main problem is that you will need to find a stable 12 volts, as the little drives run off 5 volts.

I have now gone from a installed PC, to a installed laptop.. doing this has solved loads of power issues I had, and its quite cheap also.. I managed to pick up a dell c610 (PIII 1000) for £200, this has a damaged screen, well when I say damaged its got a couple of finger marks on the screen.. pressure marks. I managed to get a docking station for it, for £20, and I added a couple of relays to this, it turns the laptop on as soon as power is connected, and the laptop is set to hibernate after 10 mins from running on battery. Its linked to the lilliput at the front and works like a dream.. For money, I think the laptop route is cheaper than the PC route, as you really need to buy a opus psu otherwise, you will have problems with power. They cost £150 alone. I bought a 12v DC-DC for £20 that powers the laptop no probs. As its got a installed battery already then it stays on when i'm filling up for GAS and cranking.

n xntrx car · 04-07-2004, 01:40 AM

i cant use a 12 -12 for the drive? i would ike to do the pda screen, cuz its perfect single din size. i don't have any more space in the dash. also its free. even using a winamp type player i cant play divx or pos even mp3? why can some of the new pdas do it, a lite version? what for os? when you say the hd can be adapted, is that external w/usb? i was planning on internal with the batt or cd rom out i have space internmally to save space.

CdRsKuLL · 04-07-2004, 03:30 AM

for the hard drive, you could grab yourself one of these

then get a pin to pin converter that will change the gender on the end, this will plug into the h/dive adapter on the laptop.

Also on such a old laptop, the bios might not support large harddrives, I would checkout this first. I cant help you out on the pda screen, as for them playing mp3's thats true, but they are running at 266+ mhz now.

As for OS, I would prob try something like win98se, It maybe worth trying to get the memory in it above 128mb as well.

1st things first.. Try getting the laptop running, just to test if it will play mp3's if it dont then you might save yourself loads of time. If your in the uk, I can send you a very old 1gig laptop drive, this would do to test it.

cheers

Steve

n xntrx car · 04-07-2004, 04:08 AM

thanks for the help. i hope it works, i had a friend whos a computer guru look at it when it failed, they said it was the drive, but the mb's are known to go also. i would test it right now just dont know how to boot it. oh well if it doesn't i'll just buy a tablet, and call it a day. i do want the single din though. thanks again.

CdRsKuLL · 04-07-2004, 04:30 AM

if it has a floppy on it, you could make a bootable disk, just to see if it boots up.

n xntrx car · 04-07-2004, 04:52 AM

lost the external floppy years ago, has slots for cf, i have a cf, but not on my desktop? could transfer though the hp but sync not here yet. its a same i cant get the hp (jornada) to recognize the hd, its got the same specs (better mem 84mb) as my laptop, and also has two card slots, just the driver wont work w/ ce (tried it on my 570). would simplify the install, just wouldn't let me megasquirt later(car stuff)
i have the hd adapter like that coming. thanks for offering advice, this dumb a@#(me) appreciates it.

berniejr · 04-07-2004, 01:28 PM

Well since I am a computer tech, I have a lot of older equipment at my disposal, at no charge, so I too decided putting together a system using my free equipment. I have gone thorugh 3 iterations so far, and here are the results. I have a Toshiba portege 650 - 133mhz 80mb ram, laptop, a IBM 380 - P150MMX, 32MB RAM laptop and a Toshiba Portege 7010 - PII 300Mhz, 160MB RAM w/ DVD docking. I also have a Ipaq 3830 PPC. First off, I can decode MP3's on all of these systems with no problems. On the 650 I used WIN98SE -Lite, on the IBM, Windows 98 and 2000, and on the 7010 2000 and XP. I can also run DVD on all 3 systems with excellent playback. On the 650 and the IBM, I have a Margi DVD-decoder card and an EXP PCMCIA DVD drive. Using the software MARGI provides, DVD's play flawlessly. The Toshiba 7010 has a DVD dock that has a built-in hardware decoder. Under 2000 using the dvdplay.exe built into W2k works fine. In XP DVD's play flawlessly using Media Player 9.0. The issues that I ran into are as follows. The 2 older machines will not allow for any HD over 6 Gig, which isn't enough for my MP3's. Addtionally, the older laptops have no USB connections, and for loading GPS software, they are extremely slow. Also the LCD on the IBM is only DSTN. In all cases I have not even come close to finding a way to use the IPAQ to control the laptop, without serious performance issues. I too would like to use the IPAQ as it would intergrate in my dash very well, but it just won't work. In the end I decided on using the Portege 7010 W/ DVD. Since I have a SUV (DODGE DURANGO), I have a little more room to with, so I ripped the screen off the hinges , remove the internal kybd, and placed the LCD flat on the laptop, so know it looks like a tablet/pen pc. I will then enclose it all in either a wood or aluminum case. This way I will have a PII-300MHZ, w/ 160MB RAM, a 40Gig HD, 2 serial, 2 USB, and 2 PCMCIA ports for expansion. I am running Media Car and Media Engine (trying to decide), and using a 12V DC-DC adapter to power it. In addtion, the docking station has a TV-out port, that I have used a y splitter to connect to 2 5" composite LCD's for DVD veiwng olny for my rear seat passengers. It also has a built in 100M Ethernet connection, so that when I pull in my garage, I can connect it to my network. I have a Sprint PCS cell phone, that I can connect to the Internet, albeit at 19,200. Over all my point is this, you can use a laptop in some creative ways but probably not with the Jordana. Good luck with your setup and let me know if you find a "stable" way to utilize the Jordana to control your setup.

CdRsKuLL · 04-07-2004, 01:52 PM

berniejr , that made excellent reading m8 :-) sounds like you have have battled your way to get where you are .. I found on my dell laptop that I had to use a usb powered hub, otherwise it wouldnt reach my touchscreen down the 5m cable, although.. when I say powered, all i've done is taken the 5v supply from the ps2 port on the docking station to the power socket of the hub, so its sort of self powered. With a combination of relays it now auto powers on. I have also fitted a wifi card, this means I can now remote in from my warm home to work on it. Just wish I had some decent gps software on it now to complete my project.. I still use my tomtom and ipaq for that..

CdR

n xntrx car · 04-07-2004, 01:55 PM

whoa! lots of info!! i understood about 96%, good explaining (to a guy who's only half here!)
i understand i might not be able to use the hp for much, but i would like to use the display.
my laptop is the ibm you mentioned, that stinks, nothing over 6gb. is there anything at all i can do to change that (ie adapt an ide conmtroller card, software etc..)
out of curiuosity i went to tigerdirect, a basic desktop to my needs will be 550, w/o the 12-12/5 or controller, ouch.
its also alot of space.
maybe i'll get luck w/ ebay and a laptop w/ a broken screen.
where did you get the windows lite?

berniejr · 04-07-2004, 02:40 PM

Well in regards to the IBM, I really didn't put a lot of effort in getting it to work with a HD over 6gig, once I discovered that the LCD was DSTN. You could use a USB or PCMCIA external drive for secondary storage, but unless you find a good deal, it may not be worth the money. I got Windows Lite from a link that I saw somewhere on this board. Basically if you have the OS loaded there are just some things that you can uninstall/disable that makes it work a little faster, although in some cases it doesn't help much at all.

CdRsKuLL

For GPS, I purchased a $30 unit from radio shack that works with my IPAQ. I modded a serial cable to conenct to the laptop, and through work I was able to get a copy of Street Atlas 2004 completely free. I know a lot of people look down on SA, but it does the job, seeing that I don't do a lot of driving anyways. I have a copy of Destinator 2.0 SDK but I have yet to test it. I am trying to get a copy of Rotuis and CoPilot to see which I like better.

I haven't needed a USB hub as of yet, since I haven't found a tocuh screen overlay, at a price that I fell is cheap enough for me to buy (I'm very cheap!

). For input I will mod a fellowes touch mouse pad into my center console. I've already tested it and it works great as it is a arms length away while I'm driving. Actaully I doubt that I will ever actually get a touchscreen, as I think the touchpad works great. I do have a a wireless router so i may add a wireless card at some point as well. Oh, I almost forgot, I will be adding a rear view camera as well. i was going to use a USB, but instead I have 2 old logitech ones, that connect via the parallel and ps/2 ports, so I will use one of these, thus I have no power concerns. Lastly I also have a Nogetech PCMCAI Tuner card, but unfortunately it only works with Win 95/98. I may look out on EBAY for a USB tuner, but since the reception will suck anyways, I will probably bypass this feature.

n xntrx car · 04-07-2004, 03:02 PM

thank you for your responses.
whats pcmcai? (sorry, i said i was an idiot, right?)
i've allready got the external hd, thats how its hooked to my computer, through usb
how can i adapt it w/o a usb? the hp has em.
i would have to add it as a slave right?
is there a way to expand the fc slots (not sure the name).
is there a tuner that fits there?
how much soud i expect to pay for an os? which do you guys recomend?
just got a ibm dock off ebay $15 tot, hopefully it wasn't wasted.
have you tried using a serial link for control?
thanks again

berniejr · 04-07-2004, 03:11 PM

Sorry about that that should have been PCMCIA slots. They are on the left or right sides of the laptop, and they allow expansin for things such as, TV Tuner cards, Network adapters, etc. In reagards to the HD, I think the suggestion that CdRsKuLL gave, about using the adapter will be your best bet. In regards to the OS, using a 133 processor w only 32MB ram, your best bet (and only!) will be Win98, just hope that you can get it running stable. I would chaeck around, you should be able to find it for free, maybe through a friend or the INternet. I have used serial as well as USB, and there are programs that can control certain features when hooked to a PC, but none that I found were useful for In car applications.

n xntrx car · 04-07-2004, 03:32 PM

i'm getting excited, so much help, you guys are great!
whats dstn?
since i have no usbs, coud something like this be usefull?
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...sPageName=WDVW
as for the drive (internal) i have one on the way, he mentioned the bios not being able to handle it, thoughts?
is there a way to pull the touch sceen software off the hp? will it be compatible? any other software that might work?
for the os, any reason to go 98 over 95? i though the diff was explorer?
Thanks again

berniejr · 04-07-2004, 03:54 PM

DSTN is an older screen type for LCD's. It it sucks 100% for anything requiring video motion, (GPS, DVD, TV, etc.).

The drive you linked to is what I used for DVD the IBM/older Toshiba. The flat end connector is a PCMCIA card. For DVD however you will need a second PCMCIA DVD decoder card and ome of the laptops PCMCIA slots must be a Zoomed Video slot to even have a chance of doing DVD. I lucked out and found both the decoder and the DVD drive on EBAY for $35 shipped!

Windows 95 is too old to be of any use for anything other than basic MP3 playing so I would say that 98 would be the absolute minimum that you'd want to go.

The thing that you want to be careful of is spending a lot of money on buying "add-on's" for an older laptop. By the time you nickel and dime parts, you'll be out of a couple hundred bucks and the performance will still be average at best. The only reason I tried my older laptops is that I already had everything that I needed minus the external DVD, so i am only out of $35. If I were in your position, I would try to determine how much I will end up spending trying to get this old laptop "up to snuff". It may very well be more than you could spend on finding a faster laptop out on EBAY.